The Edo residence of the Maeda Clan of the Kaga Domain once stood on land that now belongs to the Hongo Campus. Akamon Gate was constructed in 1827 by Nariyasu Maeda, 12th Lord of the Kaga, to welcome Lady Yasu, a daughter of the 11th shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate, as his bride. Gates built for this kind of purpose are known as goshuden-mon. Akamon Gate was constructed in the traditional gate style called yakui-mon and painted red, as was the conventional practice when receiving a shogun’s daughter as a bride. A design featuring an arched gable with undulating bargeboards (a style called kara-hafu) together with two guard posts on the sides of the gate was a style of the highest rank and allowed only for lords with 100,000 or more koku (unit of measurement for the assessment of wealth). Akamon is the only goshuden-mon still in existence and was registered as a National Treasure before World War II. At the end of the Meiji period, Akamon was dismantled and reconstructed in its current location, 15 meters west of where it originally stood.
